#2 - RAS 14
THE BRAIN DRAIN FROM RUSSIAN SCIENCE
SOURCE. A. V. Iurevich and I. P. Tsapenko, Nuzhny li Rossii uchenye?
[Does Russia Need Scientists?] (Moscow: Editorial URSS, 2001)
The authors survey and assess the two components of the brain drain from Russian science:
-- Russian scientists who emigrate abroad, and
-- Russian scientists who stay in Russia but partly or wholly abandon scientific work in favor of commerce, politics, etc.
They do not assume that the brain drain is a totally negative phenomenon. Soviet science was hypertrophied: as an island of relative freedom, it was a magnet for all intelligent people. Some redistribution of society's intellectual resources away from science is therefore a necessary part of the post-Soviet transition.
But might the process go too far? Has it already? Is the most valuable core of Soviet science being preserved? Are at least the most talented Russian scientists staying in Russia and in science? (1) And what impact do scientists make on society by going into other fields?
The first wave of post-Soviet emigration included many prominent scientists. Thus in 1996, 50 of the 100 best known Russian experimental scientists were living and working abroad. (2) However, only a couple of top-level scientists -- that is, Academicians -- emigrated (Sagdeyev, Abrikosov). In more recent years, a growing proportion of scientist emigres have been younger and much less prominent individuals.
The magnitude of the movement out of science into other fields is hard to estimate. On the one hand, many people still formally employed at scientific research institutes (SRI) are spending almost all their time doing more lucrative non-scientific work "on the side" (e.g., petty trade, taxi-driving). Many SRI employees work in subsidiaries set up by SRIs to make money from products and services that have nothing to do with science (e.g. shoe repair). On the other hand, some of the people who have formally left scientific employment are still engaged in science -- notably, those working in small science-intensive firms in the "scientific parks" attached to Moscow and some other universities. (3)
The authors are ambivalent about the social impact of scientists who have gone into business and politics. They can achieve a great deal because they bring with them general skills acquired as scientists, above all an ability to think rigorously. But many have not put these skills to good use. For instance, Berezovsky would have been less harmful to society had he remained a mathematician.
The main problem, of course, is an institutional environment that discourages honest business enterprise. It is not scientists who must learn to adapt to a market economy, the authors insist, but the criminalized pseudo-market economy that must be adapted to the moral standards of decent people like scientists. And marginalized scientists can provide a social base for a political program to civilize Russia.
The authors urge that due attention be paid to the secondary social functions of science. Scientists are needed not only to do research but also to teach -- in particular, to maintain the system of higher education -- and to preserve an intellectual atmosphere in society at large, where they are losing their authority to "wizards" and other charlatans.
NOTES
(1) However, the authors do not fully accept the implicit assumption that the loss of mediocre scientists is no real loss to Russian science. They point out that science nowadays needs a certain proportion of mediocre people to do the routine "dirty work" in support of their more talented colleagues.
(2) I. G. Ushkalov, "'Utechka umov'i sotsial'no-ekonomicheskie problemy rossiiskoi nauki" [The "Brain Drain" and the Socio-Economic Problems of Russian Science], Vestnik RGNF, 1996, No. 2, pp. 71-76. The criterion used for identifying the "best known" scientists was the frequency with which their work was cited in the foreign literature.
(3) The authors are guardedly optimistic about the future of these scientific parks (pp. 116-23).
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